


Afterlife

by karelian



Category: Actor RPF, Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Acting, Actors, Blow Jobs, Community: contrelamontre, Falling In Love, Frottage, Kissing, M/M, Movie Reference, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-25
Updated: 2003-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:35:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karelian/pseuds/karelian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're not supposed to be watching him; you're supposed to be dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Afterlife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what Sean Bean was thinking while filming Boromir's death scene but as soon as I saw the contrelamontre challenge ("Even watching him feels like being a voyeur"), I knew I had to write this. Thanks to Lady Iseult for beta. The story about the kiss came from Datalounge's message boards, where someone who worked on the film said Viggo couldn't stop crying after filming Boromir's death scene so he and Sean had a little cuddle.

Even watching him feels like being a voyeur. You're not supposed to be watching him; you're supposed to be dead. That is, Boromir is supposed to be dead, and you're supposed to lie still, glassy-eyed and uncaring in the face of Aragorn's grief.

You're not supposed to notice the leaves tickling the back of your neck, the coarse scratchy dirt on Viggo's fingers. If the tears in his eyes overflow, if a blink sends them spilling across the space that separates you to wet your face, you're not supposed to feel them.

You're dead. Viggo is so deeply into character that he may, at this moment, believe it.

Even watching him feels like being a voyeur. You're not supposed to be watching him. Still, because you can't move your eyes, you have no choice but to keep them focused on his -- the last thing you were looking at when Boromir stopped breathing. In his eyes you can't see Viggo at all, just Aragorn, even between takes, when you can hear the crew calling directions to one another and to Viggo. He doesn't acknowledge them; his focus is entirely on you. Boromir. Dead.

And you can't help but feel like an intruder, because Aragorn is supposed to be alone at this moment. He's not yet aware that Legolas and Gimli have arrived at the scene. There's just him and his grief and your -- Boromir's -- body. Even watching him feels like being a voyeur.

Someone yells action and Viggo moves, presses down on your chest, kisses you. Hard. Even as you're surrendering, trying not to react -- you're dead -- you know that you'll have to do another take. There's too much passion in the kiss; there's no way it'll make it into the film. Peter and Fran were wary enough of having you say "My brother, my captain, my king." If you and Philippa hadn't fought for the line, it wouldn't have been filmed. It still might be cut from the movie, but even if no one gets to see your performance, they'll see what it did to Aragorn. To Viggo. What it's still doing to Viggo.

Even watching him feels like being a voyeur. There's a cameraman lying close to you on a flat board on the ground, his lens focused on your face. He's laughing. So is the rest of the crew, some of whom are clapping and hooting, further off. The part of you that isn't Boromir and isn't dead is aware of this, but you barely hear them, because Viggo is still bent over you and he's crying. Tears are pouring down his cheeks, dripping into his wig and yours. The others seem to think his shoulders are shaking because he's laughing with them. You're the only one who sees.

You're not supposed to be watching him; you're supposed to be dead. But you get up on your elbows, sit forward and put your arms around him as well as you can with prop arrows sticking out of your costume. You shush him when he tells you he's sorry in a strange, strained voice. In the background you're aware of the crew at first laughing harder because they think you're playing along, then falling silent because they've realized that Viggo isn't playing at all. The cameraman on the ground turns away and backs off.

"I'm sorry," Viggo says again, chokes really, making you wonder whether he's talking to Boromir, apologizing for the orcs and the Ring and for being too late. But the accent is Viggo's, not Aragorn's, and you know that even crying he could make that distinction. Then he says your name -- yours, not your character's.

Over his shoulder you can see the crew now, peering, cautious -- peering at you, not him, because watching him feels like being a voyeur and you're supposed to be dead. The makeup and costume people are waiting to descend on you both, to sprinkle some more blood and dirt on his face where his tears have streaked it, to lie you down and readjust the arrows piercing your chest. Anger flares in you and you wish there were some way you could tell them all to bugger off for awhile.

Since you can't, you ignore them, holding on to Viggo with your legs bent uncomfortably between you and his hands squeezing your shoulders. You're so close now that you can't see his eyes anymore. And you don't have to pretend to be dead; you can tell him that it's all right. You can touch his face the way he touched yours when he was Aragorn and you were supposed to be dying.

Quietly Viggo says your name again, his voice steadier. It's probably time to let go, to allow the crew to do their jobs and do yours, but you're not ready to be Boromir again yet. Nor are you ready for Viggo to be Aragorn. Even watching him feels like being a voyeur, but you don't have to watch him right now. You can feel.


	2. Afterword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unplanned and unworthy sequel that hung around in my head until Viva Gloria tricked me into writing it.

When you finish filming your death scene, Viggo is manic. He can't stand still to watch the dailies on the monitor, stepping away to swing his sword...and he doesn't want to let you out of his sight, though he pretends that it's a game, following you, defending you from invisible enemies. You go to the costume and makeup trailers together without talking about much of anything, just trying to get through and get out of there and get back to normal.

It's a long drive to where you're staying from the location of the shoot. You ride with him in the back of a production car, his hand very close to yours on the vinyl seat. Watching him jiggle his knees, bite his nails and methodically unravel a seam from his shirt makes you want to smoke. "We should have dinner," you blurt out instead, and see him nod eagerly, though after a minute he admits that he might not be hungry and you realize he probably can't face sitting in a restaurant. You tell him you can order in and he should come over after you both shower, wondering if you look as nervous, as grateful, as lost as he does.

In your suite he's as wired as before, having trouble looking you in the eye, so unlike himself and Aragorn both that it scares you a little. You can't convince him to relax and have a beer. You can't persuade him to talk to you even though he admits he's not really okay after the second time you ask. It's obvious that he's not comfortable and also obvious that he can't bring himself to leave.

Even after you pull him down to the edge of the bed to make him sit, laughing that he's making you nervous, putting your arms around him when he clutches at your wrists like he's needed something to hold on to all evening, he can't stay still. His hands wander all over your back; his legs shift, crossing and uncrossing. You try to calm him as you would a child or a spooked pet, stroking his hair, holding him close, but it seems to have the opposite effect. When you pull back to look at him, his eyes are wild, searching yours, bright with fear and unshed tears but also something else. You go very still when you realize what it is.

"Sean," he whispers, and then again, his hands sliding around you and up to frame your face, "Sean," in that strange voice from earlier, his voice full of the same apology. You've been wondering all day whether he was apologizing to you or to Boromir, as Aragorn or as himself, for some perceived wrong against you or for his own weakness, or if maybe he was just sorry that he let the lines get so blurred. But it doesn't matter any more. Nor does it matter which of your conflicting impulses might be your own and which might be left over from your character.

In the end it comes down to a simple decision to turn away from his intensity or to open yourself to it, except the choice has already been made. You find that you can no more deny his feelings now than you could before, with a film crew watching. The difference is that now you're not supposed to be dead, so you don't have to hold back your reactions. They burn through you, fierce and terrifying, and at first you think it was easier not to feel anything, but you remember him crying and you never want to see him in pain like that again, not when you can take it from him and turn it into something else.

It takes Viggo a minute just to absorb that you're still there, holding him, looking into his eyes. Whatever part of him is Aragorn has been so deeply fused with the rest of him that you can't guess where either ends and the other begins. For all his focus, you've never seen him so utterly present before, undistracted, with no sense that he might be thinking of photographing this moment or painting it later. Tears well in his eyes and spill over when he blinks, making his shoulders heave, and it doesn't take any forethought to stroke them away, to brush your wet thumb over his dry lips.

Viggo's breath shudders as he exhales before he leans in, replaying that kiss on the ground that you accepted earlier in perfect stillness -- playing dead, you could have let him kiss you all day. There's the same salty taste, same sweaty warmth, this time without the dirt and makeup disguising his smell, his skin. This time there's nothing to stop you from lifting your hands to his head, feeling the soft weight of his hair smooth between your fingers, moving your mouth just enough under his for him to know you're with him. His lips part around yours to draw in a breath, gasping, sucking you in with the air, and it's your tongue that pushes forward, your thumbs that trace patterns on his cheekbones, echoing the memory of his fingers against your face as you went through the motions of dying.

Wet openmouthed kissing and his hands grasping at you and in moments you're hard, pulsing with the desire you managed to sublimate all day. Between kisses Viggo keeps repeating your name as if he needs to make sure that it's you, not Boromir, yet his hands run over your chest, finding the spots where the fake arrows emerged from your costume, stroking non-existent scars. All the while he's tasting your throat, scraping his teeth along your beard, moaning, rubbing against you as you twist to press your groin against his. "Touch," you beg him finally, and although his hands want to obey -- they're sliding down your body, clenching fists into the fabric that keeps them from your skin -- he hesitates just long enough to breathe a question:

"Can I stay?"

"Yes," you whisper against his mouth, practically into his mouth, a drawn-out hiss as his fingers finally reach their goal, tugging at your clothes, under your clothes. You feel a sense of unreality like one of you still might be playing a character, so you say to yourself, 'Viggo, this is _Viggo_,' and it's amazing what that does to you, how it almost sends you over the edge just thinking it. He feels the shock travel through your body and groans with you. Then you know it's going to be fast and inevitable even if your brain kicks in, but you're past the point of turning back -- you think you passed that point when you looked up at him this afternoon with a camera fixed on your face and a crew laughing in the background.

Viggo pushes you down and takes your clothes off, all of them, not stopping you when you touch him but not responding. His hands wander again over wounds that weren't real. Eventually you give in and lie still, as passive as if you were playing dead but not nearly as quiet. When he sucks you hard into his mouth, the pressure is almost painful; one of his hands clings tightly to your hip, the other strokes you while he nestles the tip of your cock between his tongue and his palate. His eyes close tightly and small needy noises escape from him. You wonder whether he was a thumb-sucker, for he seems to be comforting himself as much as pleasuring you.

Better not to move until he calms down a little, you think, awash in waves of longing you can barely control, but you whisper his name in a shaky, shaken voice. Then without transition he takes you back toward his throat, damp fingers pushing beneath you to encourage you to thrust...it's all too much, you can't hold it, writhing, spilling into his mouth, crying out too late. Viggo doesn't let go.

You're inert, incapable of motion when he crawls up and out of his remaining clothes. Raised up on his arms, he leans over you, and the deja vu would be disconcerting if the euphoria hadn't filled you with a bone-deep sense of rightness. It's right when he slides against you with his hard cock alongside your softening one, it's right when he burrows his face between your neck and shoulder and braces his knees around your thighs, it's right when your arms go around him as he begins to rock, predictable and reassuring, and it's especially right when he comes all over you, thicker than blood and hotter than tears.

Sticky as you are, you think you could lie there all night without moving, at peace. Still, when Viggo rolls his weight off of you, you turn to the side to make sure he can see the heart-stopping pleasure that you're sure shows in your smile. The wildness is gone from Viggo's eyes; he looks exhausted yet serene, clasping your hand in his. You watch but you don't feel like a voyeur. And you think Viggo doesn't have to be upset about Boromir anymore because this, this is real.


	3. Afterglow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yet another unplanned chapter for Freelove, who flaps hands around like a trained seal when she gets a sequel. Thanks to Tryllian and Ealgylden for beta.

You wake to find Viggo gazing at you.

The room is still mostly dark and your eyes aren't quite focused. And even though you're sure his eyes are open, you think that he might be staring right through you, the way you were supposed to stare right through him when you were playing dead. But before you can even blink, he smiles a little and whispers, "Hi."

"Hi," you whisper back, discovering that your throat has clogged and clearing it as you stretch. He follows your movements, not intrusively, but looking content with what he sees. It's a little embarrassing and also makes you feel really good -- appreciated, protected. Settling back, you wink and ask, "Are you spying on me?"

"I was just watching you sleep," Viggo confesses. The day before intrudes in a series of quick images that come flashing back to you, though of course you hadn't really forgotten, even in dreams through which you could feel the weight of his body drawing you into the center of the mattress. Keeping you warm. The fatigue in your muscles makes you languid...or maybe it's Viggo's steady presence, a study in contrasts with his agitation from a few hours past. With a complicit grin, he adds, "I bet Aragorn watched Boromir sleep."

"To make sure Boromir didn't get up and steal the Ring." You both chuckle but your pulse has quickened at the implication. "You don't think he only had eyes for Arwen?"

"And Eowyn," his grin broadens, "and Legolas," and you reach over and thump him, laughing.

"Don't forget Gimli and the hobbits. And Gandalf."

"And Saruman."

"And Lurtz?" Viggo's smile falters despite the humor in your voice. "Hey, you're not going to give Lawrence hell for killing me, are you?"

"Nah. Maybe I would have if _I_ didn't get to kill _him_." Despite Viggo's snicker, the mood has shifted, and after a moment his fingers weave through yours. They're warm and sticky, not rough and dry as they were against your face during the shoot and not cold and stiff as they were later, when you first pulled him beside you. "Going to be all kinds of interesting subtext in this movie now," he observes.

"Already was. In the book too." You pause. Sleep and yesterday's tears have constricted your throat, snagging your words. They taste funny as they squeeze past your lips: "I think I'm gay." Viggo's eyes widen in surprise and his head tilts, though his hand remains relaxed in yours, and you quickly amend, "Boromir, I mean."

"You think he thought about it in those terms?"

You shrug. You can sense how Boromir feels, even though you don't know the words he would use for some things, and you suspect that there are other things he might find so difficult to accept that he would consider them inadmissible. You're not sure which category this topic would fall into.

"I don't think it was ever his first concern. He has so many other things on his mind. It's sort of buried under a lot of other issues. It's there though. Don't you think?"

Viggo nods, rubbing his thumb across the back of your hand, a message whose meaning you're not sure of beyond simple acceptance.

"It's going to be strange to backtrack. To film all those scenes when we've first met and we barely know each other." You hear yourself switch to talking about Boromir in the first person and wonder whether that, too, is strange.

"Is it going to be harder, now?" Viggo wonders aloud. You try to picture him as a stranger again, to superimpose Aragorn's wariness, but it's impossible with Viggo so calm next to you, features slack with sleep and satisfaction. Dreamlike. Perhaps that image will overlay Aragorn's when you film the earlier parts of the movie, and the dream will become Boromir's.

Then you think about how you could be filming those scenes with Stuart Townsend. Had things gone differently, you could have filmed Boromir's death with him the day before. You liked Stuart well enough, yet the thought that anyone but Viggo could have been there with you is so unpleasant that it makes you flinch.

"I'm just glad you decided to come to New Zealand, Vig," you blurt out, ashamed of your lack of restraint until you remember what he was like the past evening. It seems only fitting even though he's so different now -- measured, thoughtful, much more what you think of him as being like -- even though you've never really thought about him in bed with you, even as Boromir.

Still, nothing feels wrong about it. Right now, near enough to feel his body heat, you're purely comfortable with Viggo, not angst-ridden, not aroused...and that, you think, cannot be in character, because in Boromir's vast lexicon of feelings toward Aragorn, there's nothing you would label comfort. There's never a moment when they're simply at ease, alone together.

Suddenly you wish that they had had this, just once, just like this, so Boromir would have had that memory to take with him beyond the grave. Because his story is such a tragedy: he learns everything too late, he sees clearly too late, only as his life is ebbing away. Yet you've already lived through his last moments, and what you found there was enough to make you believe that he felt blessed at the end. What Viggo gave you was more than enough.

You wonder how the scene would have played out for the cameras and afterwards if you'd made the choice not to see. You'd have died stiffly and nobly, and that formality would have worked its way into all the scenes you filmed later to lead up to that climax. The courage of those feelings would have been lost to the movie. And you wouldn't be basking now in solace with Viggo, thinking that if this closeness cannot be repeated -- if the backtracking must happen for you as well as your characters -- then you will take the memory and carry its glow the way Aragorn wears the Evenstar.

"It'll be easier now," you tell Viggo. "Now we have to earn that last scene. Show them what's between the men that isn't in the script. We just raised the bar."

Viggo gives you a contented smile and you realize that his eyes have been drifting shut while you've been lying here thinking and babbling. "I'm glad I decided to come to New Zealand too," he slurs. The room is lighter, with the sun about to rise beyond the curtains, though you're both still drained from the day before. You roll onto your stomach and shift over until your arm presses along Viggo's chest, watching as he falls back asleep. His head and the pillow block most of the brightness, leaving only a vague halo behind him.

You imagine what it will look like when Aragorn and Boromir meet onscreen, the intensity of that moment. And when they part, all the tenderness and mourning you could feel in his kiss, projected larger than life for thousands of moviegoers...that will last forever, in a vision of captured light.


End file.
